The British nanny with a penchant for magic and dashing arrogance became a darling of the Soviet and Russian audience after the brilliant portrayal of blonde Natalya Andreichenko. (Like and repost, if "Mary! Lady Mary" or at least "Thirty-three cows" is now playing in your head, too).

But by the time the "Mary Poppins, Goodbye" movie was released by Mosfilm, the English-speaking world had already been singing about the nanny-sorceress to its own tunes – and for 20 years.

In 1964, the Disney musical comedy stole the hearts of all the children in the UK and the US, was awarded 5 Oscars, made a star Julie Andrews overnight and brought its creators 102 million dollars in exchange for the modest six spent on its creation.

All this happened despite the fact that the creator of Mary Poppins – the British writer Pamela Travers – would be livid with indignation from the very idea that her stand-offish heroine could be merrily galloping down the street to the tune of children's rhymes!

…Why "would", though, this was her actual reaction.

Today we present to you "Saving Mr. Banks", a movie about a movie: the story of how the soon-to-be iconic Disney musical was made.

Making it had been was the great Walt's dream for nearly 20 years, but Pamela Travers kept flat-out refusing to give him the rights for a screen adaptation.

And when she did agree at last – very reluctantly, – things turned even worse: she abhorred absolutely every line in the first version of the script.

The two weeks that Miss Travers spent in the USA "amending" the script featured everything: the catastrophic discrepancy between the British and American mentality, rigorous disputes about the casting of actors, the co-authors' struggle for the purity of the English language (as each of them understood it)...

And, finally, the inner truth about why the fairy tale about a magic nanny was something so very personal, valuable and important for her creator.

Photo: Kinopoisk